


Kyla's Turn

by Merayi



Series: TransFormation [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexic Kylo (implied), Awkward Crush, Crushes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, LGBTQ Character, Light Angst, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:56:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merayi/pseuds/Merayi
Summary: Kyla has an idea for a cool outing, but it ends up backfiring a little. Rey doesn't mind, though.





	Kyla's Turn

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Tragic History and Casual Swearing  
> If you have read up to this point in this series, you will know that my writing is what can be labelled "political". Don't like, don't read. For those who it affects, representation means everything, and I will not stop creating characters who my wonderful, diverse friends can see themselves in.  
> All the books mentioned in this chapter exist. I didn't know so many books about LGBT characters existed until researching for this part of the story, but it made me incredibly happy!  
> Also, happier things are waiting for Kyla pretty soon. Promise!

Rey was sitting on her bed reading when her phone pinged, and she rolled over to fish it out of her front pocket. Seeing it was a text from Kyla made her breath catch, and she unlocked the phone with a hasty swipe, fingers fumbling, opening the phone app by mistake before the texting one.

  
_Hey_ , the text read, _I had a really great time at the park with you, and I would like to hang out again. Do you want to meet me outside the Municipal Library tomorrow at around 1pm? I have an activity to try. I promise it will be fun._

Taking a deep breath, Rey tried to digest the butterflies emerging in her stomach. She hated all the complicated, unspoken rules of social interactions. Did she reply immediately, because that was when she had gotten the text? She didn’t want to seem too keen. Did she reply later? She hated that expectation, that need to wait, and what if she forgot to reply?

Making a decision was too hard. She set an alarm so she didn’t completely forget that time existed, and then went back to her book for another hour before thinking about it.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

When she replied, an hour and a half later, it was barely five minutes before the phone again gave its little text tone. Rey scrunched her nose up and a muscle in her cheek twitched with her annoyance. All that fussing she had put herself through! At least it was good to know that Kyla didn’t observe those silly social norms either.

The two texted back and forth for half an hour or so, arranging details.

Rey did offer to pick Kyla up, but the skinny woman had specified that she would prefer to walk. It wasn’t that far, she needed the exercise, it would be fine, Rey was assured.

Honestly, it was a little concerning. She wasn’t convinced, but neither could she convince Kyla.

Oh, well. She was sure it would be fine.

It was a plan. Rey would meet her new friend at the library the next day.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

This… not-date didn’t garner quite the same level of panic that the previous one had. Kyla hadn’t specified where exactly they were going - well, other than the library, possibly - but she hadn’t specified anything above casual, either. And, it had been pretty comfortable hanging out with her last time.

Not to get her wrong, Rey still wanted to look nice, but… She was tossing up between “I’m a strong, independent woman, and if this person likes me less because of my clothes, it’ll be better to find out now” and “oh, my goodness, she’s so pretty, and I don’t want to look like a potato next to her.”

In the end, Rey threw on the same pants and boots she had worn last time and a simple, cream, ballet-wrap blouse of soft cashmere. Her favourite draped, cut-shoulder cardigan made her appropriate for the brisk, chilly autumn day.

She was tempted to bring the Mustang again, but Poe was out somewhere. Besides, it wasn’t like she didn’t have a fairly nice car, too. While she didn’t earn much, her boss - Tim Wexley - had been so embarrassed by his best mechanic rocking up in a truly awful, beaten-up old junker that her Christmas bonus one year had been a third-hand 1994 Chevvy Camaro. He’d gotten it for around three grand because it had engine trouble, but Rey had fixed it up easy.

She pulled up outside the Municipal Library in the ‘arctic white’ Chevvy. The state of the cars parked outside was much less like the Camaro and much more like her old rust-bucket. She recalled the face Poe had pulled parking the Mustang behind Kyla’s apartment, and endeavored not to make the same face, even though there was so much she could do to fix those cars! It was just dangerous that in a place so dependent on cars to get you anywhere, there were so many people unable to afford decent ones.

Hesitantly, Rey got out and locked the Camaro’s doors, tying her cardigan around her waist. She looked around. Kyla didn’t seem to be there yet. She checked her phone. Okay, she was slightly early, so no wonder Kyla wasn’t there. It was ten minutes to one.

The library was a practical building, squat and double-storied, with long, evenly-spaced windows set into wooden frames painted peeling off-white. It was made of the same pale-rust bricks that all libraries seem made of, the same thick, concrete stairs and ramp leading to the same double doors, the same gilt-gold placard above the door, dedicating it to whoever had fronted the funds that the government should have to bring books to the general populace.

Rey sat down on the front step. She checked her phone again. Kyla was a couple of minutes late, but she was walking, so that was to be expected, right? She tried not to think of her previous concerns about the eight kilometer walk and her skinny friend’s knobby knees. Why hadn’t she just taken Rey up on the offer of a lift?

Just as Rey was starting to move from slightly concerned to quite worried, she spotted a willow-slim figure coming up the footpath. The figure had a long, black cardigan - not dissimilar to Rey’s brown one - thrown over one wiry arm, and they carried a small, leather backpack slung over their wide, bony shoulders. As they came closer, it was clear it was definitely Kyla.

Once again, Rey was in awe.

Kyla’s skater dress swished with the movement of her walk, her combat boots calf-high, buckled up, and badass. Goodness only knew how her thigh-high socks (black, of course, and opaque) stayed in place on her slender thighs. Rey made her eyes keep moving upward, not lingering too long on the narrow bands of pale skin visible between sock and dress.

The dress Kyla wore was so simple in design, and yet so stunning, that Rey caught herself staring once again. It was turtleneck, long-sleeved, textured in subtle, creased horizontal lines, black-on-black, with a zip right down the front and a hem that came to mid-thigh. She had gathered it at her slim waist with the same silver-buckled belt as last time. Rey didn’t think she would ever stop being astounded by how striking the punk woman was.

Kyla came to a stop in front of the steps, leaning her weight on one hip shyly. Her pale face was flushed pink and little beads of sweat glinted on her high forehead, dappling the powder foundation she wore. Strands of loose hair clung to her neck. The rest was pulled into a stylishly-messy, braided bun. She swung the bag around and fished a plastic water bottle out of it.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.” She stopped to take a gulp. “Took me longer than I thought it would.”

Rey swallowed the temptation to reply that she could have gotten a ride to the library and it wouldn’t have been an issue, but instead, she said, “All good, it seemed like it would be a pretty strenuous walk. So, what’s this activity you promised would be fun?”

“Right.” Kyla grinned, fished around in her bag again, and pulled out two sheets of lined paper and two stubby pencils. She handed one of each to Rey.

At the top, in tiny writing, the page read LIBRARY SCAVENGER HUNT. Below was a list, under two headings: FIND THE GENRE and FIND A BOOK. A good couple dozen items were printed under each title, the blank line beside them promising.

Rey looked down the list. The first thing she noticed was that Kyla’s handwriting was much like her clothing: impeccable and stylish. It slanted to the left, spidery and narrow and light on the page. The second thing she noticed was how much effort this would have taken. Kyla had put some serious thought into this. She was flattered.

Then, Rey registered the second word.

“Hey, did I tell you about that? I didn’t think I did. How did you know?”

“How did I know what?” Kyla looked bewildered.

“My nickname when I was a kid was ‘Scavenger’. I would look for bits of tech and junk that had been left in scrap heaps and find useful things. The very first car I bought from a scrap yard and fixed it up so that it ran again. I love finding cool things.”

“Oh. That’s perfect then.” Kyla smiled, glancing down at the piece of paper and then back up at Rey. Scavenger. Yeah, she could see that. “Can I call you Scavenger?”

“If you want.” It wasn’t Rey’s favourite nickname - hell, it had a heck of a lot of nasty memories attached - but somehow, it didn’t sound at all cruel coming from Kyla’s plump-cherry lips.

“C’mon then, Scavenger, we’ve got books to find, if you’re keen.”

“I _am_ keen.”

Without thinking, Rey hooked her arm through Kyla’s as she stood. She nearly jerked it back again when the tall woman jumped and startled, but Kyla just took a breath and looped her arm around Rey’s tighter. Clutching their pencils and paper, they climbed the steps to the Municipal Library.

“So, we can either work together or compete against each other,” Kyla suggested, “Up to you.”

“Let’s work as a team,” Rey decided, almost immediately, “That’s more fun.”

Rey was going to ask if they were going to go down the list one-by-one or just explore through the library and see what they found. But, the display in the lobby answered that question the second they walked through the door. Laughing with glee, Rey let go of Kyla’s arm to look over the titles and blurbs under the banner reading LGBT HISTORY MONTH.

“Okay, so we can already tick off LGBT main character, urban fantasy times a zillion, epic fantasy, crime, short story anthology, romance, nonfiction, memoir, and to-read list. Heck, that’s half of the Scavenger Hunt done right now!”

Rey raised her pencil and started writing down titles, interspersing reading off the back covers with her own running commentary. Some of the books that caught her attention the most, she stacked up in her arms to check out for herself. She chatted in the excited, endearing way she had done at the picnic. The spunky brunette clearly loved books, and it was the sweetest thing.

“ _Calendar Girl_ , by Stella Duffy, ticks off crime fiction. It’s from the point of view of a cynical lesbian stand-up comedian dragged into the murder of her secretly drug-smuggling, gambling, high-class prostitute girlfriend. Wow, what a plot twist!” Rey disappeared briefly behind the display. “ _The Boatman_ , a memoir of an Englishman in India having to come to terms with his sexuality. That would be an interesting read. Oh!” She smiled a bright smile. “You’ll like this one, I think. _George_ , by Alex Gino, is about a trans girl who doesn’t want to play a boy role in her primary school play, so her friends make sure she gets a girl role and gets called Melissa, not George. And, look at this one! You’ll love this one even more. It’s called _Dreadnough_ t, by April Daniels. A fifteen year-old trans girl holds a superhero as he dies, and he passes his powers onto her… which, as a side-effect, gives her the femme body she’s always wanted, and she becomes a trans superhero in his legacy. Oh, that is so cool! That’s now definitely going at the top of my to-read list.” Rey was distracted as soon as she had added the book to her pile. “Oh! Lookie! _The Soldier’s Scoundrel_ , by Cat Sebastian. I didn’t think they did steamy romance-novel covers for gay people.”

Rey turned around, dangling the image of a faceless man’s abs and another faceless man’s hands like a pair of used panties. She stopped when she say Kyla, though. The lanky woman was standing at the door, leaning against the frame like she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She had a funny smile, partly happy and partly sad, and the corners of her mouth kept twitching like they couldn’t decide whether to be up or down. She was staring at the book covers - all of them glossy and rainbow, with smiling drawings and posed photos - like she had been suddenly transported to an alternate universe.

Without a word, Rey put her stack of books down under a table, went back, and took Kyla’s long, bony hand. She didn’t say anything. She merely guided Kyla out of the doorway to a more quiet corner, and held her hand, and waited beside her in silence as the tall woman took a breath and tried to compose herself.

Humiliation made Kyla want to suppurate into the sticky, public-building carpet. She had planned this amazing adventure to share with Rey - she had put so much thought into it, picking genres she thought Rey would like to read, writing out the lists in her best writing - and now she was barely holding herself together. It was only a fucking library display! What the fuck was wrong with her?! Every time she say Rey, she managed to embarrass herself like this. Could she not manage to be a normal person for five fucking minutes???

And, she didn’t even know if it was good or bad that Rey didn’t seem to mind, that her new friend was always so calm and so sweet and would always just be with Kyla in silence while she sorted her shit out. She had yet to work out what she had done to deserve such a good person in her life. She hoped it would last, at least for a little while.

It was just… she had read all the meager number of books about LGBT characters that she had managed to get her hands on. She had read about the friendships and romances that made the main character’s struggle easier to face. She had just never understood that until now. She hadn’t even ever seen this many books with characters who looked like her.

“I didn’t know it was LGBT History Month,” Kyla said finally. She almost laughed at her own words. That didn’t do justice to what was going through her head. “I didn’t know the library here would celebrate it.” That was slightly more like it.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” Rey replied. Her voice was alive with a pure kind of joy. She could guess some of the thoughts going through her head; they were probably thoughts that she had had, too, not that long ago. She remembered how overwhelming it could be, that first moment when she had realized that she wasn’t alone. She smiled at her new friend, as warm and bright as summer sunshine, and Kyla had to smile back, just a little.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” Rey squeezed her hand, and Kyla’s smile solidified.

“Yeah. Let’s go hunt some books, Scavenger.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

After filling in the remaining genres that the LGBT display held - _The Best American Sci-Fi and Fantasy 2018_ , edited by N.K. Jemisin (short story); _Huntress_ , by Malinda Lo (epic fantasy): _To See the Sun_ , by Kelly Jensen (sci-fi); _The Mermaid Singing_ , by Val McDermid (the book with the trans villain by Kyla’s favourite author); _Vampires and Violets: The History of Lesbians in Cinema_ , by Andrea Weiss (non-fiction); _Rainbow Boyz_ , by Alez Sanchez (on Rey’s to-read list); - the two women branched further out into the library.

“So,” Rey asked, “Should we start in the young adult fiction section? It looks like most of these could fall under that category.”

“Sure.”

The library was set out in a grid of mini-rooms, each walled off with bookshelves. Fiction was too big for one room, so it took up most of the back quarter. There was a small, boxy common room in the middle of the fiction section, kitted out with beanbags and coffee tables and small couches. Different square rooms branched off around it, purely for books. At the top of each bookshelf was a neat, printed label showing what genre was in each box.

Rey dropped the books she had decided to check out by a low table, then picked one shelf at random, and started searching for more. Kyla watched her run off, slightly baffled.

The common idiom was “not to judge a book by its cover.” Kyla also remembered hearing somewhere that you could tell a lot about a person from if they read books, and if they did, what books they read. But, she didn’t know what to infer from the book covers that caught the other woman’s attention. Watching this whirlwind woman was slightly stunning. Rey was on a mission, and there was no stopping her from finding what she had set out to find. Smiling at the intensity in her new friend’s hunt, Kyla leaned against a bookshelf and let Rey scavenge.

Rey loved green. And blue. Every book with a hint of green and/or blue on its cover was piled up in her arms. Book titles seemed to be picked at random. Her bun and cardigan bounced with her movements as she swept around the fiction section like a mini-tornado, choosing a huge stack of books, which she dumped on one of the low tables in the middle of the room. She spread them out, skimming through the blurbs and categorizing them by sub-genre. Closing her eyes, she picked one book from each pile at random and put them in another stack right in the middle. She picked up the first one.

Kyla joined her on the floor, tucking her long, skinny legs under her, dumping her bag and cardigan on the floor beside her. Laying her piece of paper on the table, glancing over at Rey’s page, she started filling in the blanks she had missed.

“Okay….” Rey cleared her throat with mock-importance, pencil at the ready, scribbling as she spoke, “ _Raven Stole the Moon_ , by Garth Stein. It was in the supernatural section.”

Kyla picked up the book and examined the back cover.

“Huh. It’s based on old Inuit myths. A young mother finds out that her child, instead of drowning two years before, has probably been taken by otter spirits called kushtaka.”

“That’s so cool!”

“It would be interesting to read, and then to do some research on Inuit myths, and see how accurate the book was.” Kyla fished her phone out of her bag, writing a Memo to herself to _research kushtaka?_ and tucking the phone back in its pouch.

 _Raven Stole the Moon_ was added to the increasingly towering pile of books to check out. Rey picked up the next book from the stack of books to go through.

YA novel ( _Ashes_ , by Ilsa J. Black), award-winning ( _The God of Small Things_ , by Arundati Roy. “That’s supposed to be sad,” Kyla had mentioned), a book that Rey had read that year ( _Gone Girl_ , by Gillian Flynn. “Oh, my God, the plot twist!” Rey had exclaimed, “That book seriously messed with my head!”), and book that was turned into a film ( _Silence_ , by Shusaka Endo. “That was a film?” Rey had asked. “Yeah!” Kyla had replied, “It came out a couple years ago at the Cannes Film Festival. Adam Driver’s in it! He is so talented!”) were all ticked off in quick succession.

“Historical Fiction,” Rey continued, picking up the next book, “ _A Singular Hostage_ , by Thalassa Ali.”

“Beautiful name,” Kyla interjected, “It sounds like something out of Star Wars.” She paused for a beat. “But, in a good way. Y’know?”

“Yeah,” Rey agreed, scanning the back cover, “She’s an Indian writer, and the book is set during 19th Century British rule in India. That’s different.”

“It’d be interesting to read a historical fiction not set in one of the common time periods that people always write about,” Kyla mused, “I’m sick to death of reading about the Second World War.”

“It is a little overdone, isn’t it?”

“It’s just so romanticized.” Kyla groaned, throwing her head back. “Oh, yet another _romantic_ story of a Nazi falling in love with a minority, despite still actively working to kill them? Spare me. That's not romance.” Kyla’s top lip curled in distaste. “Especially since that the Nazis destroyed all scientific mention of trans people as not insane loonies with mental issues.”

The tone of that sentence came out a little harsher than she had meant it. Kyla felt a little bad when Rey’s eyes widened like a camera aperture. Her hands flew to her open mouth, and her pencil dropped to the desk.

“No! I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah.” Kyla squirmed uncomfortably. Oh, fuck. She shouldn’t have brought it up. This afternoon was supposed to be light-hearted and fun, and there was nothing light-hearted and fun about her hatred of war fiction. Why did she say anything? Why did she even open her mouth? She didn’t want to be the reason that Rey’s thousand-watt smile dimmed. She just… didn’t always know how to talk to people. Her mouth said all the things she was thinking before her brain said not to.

This was the second time in ten minutes that Kyla had been so weak - so teary and childish and pathetic - and she tried to swallow down the boiling self-hatred. It made her feel sick. She rolled her shoulders back, trying to release her budding anger in the physicality of it. A muscle in her jaw jumped.

But, Rey was staring at her expectantly. The topic had been brought up now, and the first part of it was pretty incredible, even if the rest wasn’t. Kyla was happy to share some of the information, and maybe she could just skim over the rest.

“I can’t pronounce the German name, but it was a private research institute in Berlin known as the Institute for the Science of Sexuality. Magnus Hirschfield and Harry Benjamin were the first people to employ openly trans people, to pioneer medical transition surgeries, and they stopped police from arresting cross-dressers. They created medical ‘passes’ to allow people to wear the clothing of their actual gender, not their assigned gender.” She knew the names of those two scientists. She would always, always be grateful to those names. “They wanted to prove without a doubt that being LGBT was just as natural as being cishet.”

Rey’s smile had come back full-force, and there were tears glinting on the surface of her eyes that made Kyla’s eyes water.

  
“That’s… wow.” Rey sighed happily. “We always think of that time as so horribly homophobic and transphobic, but even then, there were people who knew that it was right.”

“It _was_ horribly homophobic and transphobic! They wouldn’t have needed the Institute if the police weren’t arresting people for the crime of wearing a fucking dress!” Rey’s happiness made Kyla uncomfortable and irrationally angry. This story didn’t have a happy ending. “Destroying the Institute was one of the first things the Nazis did. They gained power in March 1933, and the Institute was gone by May.”

“What happened to the scientists?” Rey asked. The look in her eyes said that she really didn’t want to know the answer. On one hand, Kyla thought, it was good. Surely, she got how much struggle those scientists had faced? On the other hand, she felt guilty about making her new friend sad.

“What do you think?” Kyla looked down at her damned big hands, her jaw working as she tried even harder to deal with her anger. “A few of them survived, mostly by going into hiding. The rest were sent to death camps. All of their research was burned, over 20,000 journals. It was one of the first public book burnings the Nazis committed. Every single copy was hunted down from libraries all over the country and burned while people watched, and no one stopped them.” She still stared at her hands, but she didn’t see them anymore. “The only thing the Nazis didn’t burn was the lists of the Institute’s clients. Over 10,000 people were on those lists, and they were all rounded up and murdered.” Kyla tried to stop the crack in her voice. “Even after the War, the German government agreed with the Nazis and claimed what they had done was legal. The government didn’t allow the Institute to reopen in Berlin until the late 1990’s.”

She hung her head. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it, because it hurt too much to think about. She knew it was a good eighty years ago, but that was still within living memory. She knew those people were long dead, but that didn’t stop her from feeling their pain. She knew things had changed, but not enough. Not enough for her to be safe. Not enough for the people around her to be safe.

  
That was her heritage, the history of her people: hate crimes and violence and death. This was why she hadn’t wanted to let Rey in to start with. This was just a reminder that she should push Rey away before she messed her up irreversibly.

Even worse, now the floodgates had opened, and she couldn’t make herself shut up.

“I just get so fucking angry when people accuse us of being trans for attention, and argue that ‘well, there aren’t any trans people in history before the last twenty years, so it must just be a Tumbr fad’. There aren't many trans people in history because we were systematically destroyed. Our history was burned down, colonized, arrested, punished, beaten up, murdered. I don’t get why the fuck they think we want attention. Being in the centre of attention gets us killed.”

Rey reached over and squeezed her hand again, trying to anchor Kyla back in the library room. The goth woman jerked her head up, staring at her with shielded eyes that didn't quite hide the anger and hurt. Rey met her gaze, and had the strongest instinct to reach out and brush a flyaway strand of black hair behind Kyla's adorably size-too-big ear. She didn't know where that thought had come from, and she didn't want to think about it. It would be the worst thing to do to Kyla right now. Rey felt off-kilter and a little out of her depth, but she wanted to help. Taking a breath, she tried to keep her face neutral. She knew she had started to blabber again, but maybe she would manage to say something helpful. 

“I don’t have any words to make you feel better, but that is a truly horrible thing, and it never should have happened, and I know that saying that doesn’t help, because it did. I’m sorry for bringing it up; I didn’t know. I have more questions about the Institute, but I’m sure I can ask Doctor Google. I’m sorry.”

“Doctor Google?” Kyla asked. She raised an eyebrow, latching onto a change of topic.

“Doctor Google,” Rey confirmed, nodding with surety, “Xe knows everything.”

Kyla gave a small smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. Rey truly was extraordinary. What other cis person would think to refer to Google as “xe”? After all, it wasn’t like a web browser had a gender, despite the silly arguments on social media over whether Google was male or female. Cis people were weird sometimes. They were better about not misgendering MnM’s and computer programs than they were about not misgendering Kyla.

Shaking the thoughts out of her head, she reached for the next book.

“Wait.” Rey stopped her. Kyla paused as if frozen with a word, staring at her hand and wondering why she - always rebellious, always angry - had listened without question to a single syllable spoken from a new friend’s lips. She swung her eyes to the brunette, her jaw tilting just a degree to the right, considering the person before her as Rey continued to speak. “I… I don’t quite know what to say, but I can tell that this is a really big issue for you. It’s a really big issue, full stop, and I didn’t know that when I brought up the subject. So, the books can wait; there’s only five left anyway, and we’d probably have to leave the fiction section to find them. Right now, we’re going to take a break, and go get a coffee or something, and chill for a bit. I don’t expect you to keep on like normal when you’ve just told me about something so horrible and you’re so upset. Okay?”

Kyla stared, stared and trembled and fought down the rising swirl of all these emotions she couldn’t even name. Rage started to boil deep inside her. Her hands clenched into fists. Her shoulders rolled forward. 

She wanted to lash out. That was her first response: to lash out, to push away, to hurt Rey a little now so that she didn’t hurt her more later. How dare this privileged woman come storming into her life like a little tornado and treat her like just another broken car! How dare she come bounding in knowing nothing and throw Kyla’s weakness in her face! Kyla had managed just fine without anyone for years, and she didn’t need anyone now! Already she had become far too dependent on Rey being there, and it was about time she put a stop to it! Rey wouldn’t stick around for very long, she knew that, and she had to be able to handle it when it happened. It was easier to do that if she didn’t get too close.

But, Kyla was selfish. And weak. And bad. She knew she would likely hurt Rey if she kept being friends with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to push the brunette away. She just couldn’t. She stared at this wonderful, cheerful, bubbly woman, the one who had shoved her way between Kyla and… and that beast, and had made sure she was okay without a single hint of wanting something in return, and had made her feel so normal every time they had hung out since. Kyla’s gaze darted back and forth between Rey’s hazel eyes, trying to figure out the catch. There had to be a catch.

Rey just met her gaze, sure and steady and calm.

Fuck it. Kyla was going to just keep being selfish for now. If there was a catch, she could deal with the pain of it later. Right now, she wanted a cup of tea. Green tea only had two calories, so it was okay. And… and maybe she wanted a hug, too, like the one Rey had given her when… It was difficult to label exactly what that moment had been. Just… when Rey had sat with her outside the bar bathrooms, she guessed. She just didn’t want to admit that that was what she wanted. She didn’t even know how she could ask.  
Kyla didn’t even have the energy to argue anymore.

Slowly, she formed her mouth around the word, “Okay.”

The two women stood. Kyla grabbed her cardigan and bag, and Rey hefted her stack of books. Together, they tidied up the area they had been, putting the books back, quick and efficient. Kyla was only just holding it together, and so she worked as fast as she could. It would be just the end of her day to have a full meltdown in the public library in front of Rey. She clung to coping while Rey put her pile of books on hold to check out later. It was quicker than checking them out then, and it didn’t require as much talking to other people.

Walking back out into the crisp, autumn air, Rey looked around. The library was situated in a not-entirely-great part of town. She hated judging it that way. It just had that hopeless air of a place that sat on the corner of grunge and neglect, somewhere in the forgotten community between the affluent neighbourhoods and the near-slums where Kyla lived.

There weren’t any cafes on the street, but she had a couple favourites that weren’t too far away. Rey unlocked the doors of her Camaro and motioned for Kyla to get in. For once, the car-mad woman didn’t comment on the pearly-white Chevvy, but merely slid into the passenger seat and slumped down with her bag in her lap. Her shoulders were rolled in, like she wanted to be as small and insignificant as possible.

In the moments it took to strap her seatbelt over her chest and put the Chevvy in gear, Rey looked over at Kyla and wondered if there was anything she could say. She decided that there wasn’t, not really, not just yet. She would drive them to the cafe and then to her favourite spot by the river, and if Kyla wanted to talk, she would.

So, wordlessly, Rey did just that.

Half an hour later, the two young women sat on the hood of the Camaro with biodegradable takeaway cups and watched the sun glint on the water as the river ran its course. They were silent as they sat, about an arm’s length apart. They sat there for a long time. And, even though it was fleeting, Kyla allowed herself to imagine that everything would be okay, and she felt the whisper of peace.


End file.
